Between whatever’s causing my 1 a.m. anxiety attacks and those cutting short my already limited sleep, I’ve attained heretofore unimaginable levels of irritability.
It’s an excellent time to not have social media to breathe fire all over.
Being horribly distracted for 12 days meant resorting to busywork to simulate productivity. One of my doodle-scribbles aspired to compare and contrast Heroine with antagonists to make more developmental work for myself if I ever regained use of my brain. Heroine’s mentor was no surprise—they’ve been together since Heroine was eight years old, they do the same job and share certain pragmatic views, but Mentor is all “fuck the peasants for personal gain” while Heroine is more “you know, there are more of us down here than up there, and those pillars of privilege aren’t as structurally sound as they appear, I’m just sayin’.” That was all planned from the beginning.
I was not expecting to find that the known series antagonist is quite so samey-same as Heroine, which shook loose some possibilities to play with in terms of the overarching plot. (I know the basic shape of the overarching plot, but the same way I’m still “discovering” things after an in-depth outline and three drafts of this story, the overarching plot is subject to refinement. The trick is suggesting that shape to readers without ripping the dust cover off it in Book One and committing to the janky beta version I’ve prematurely exposed.)
I distinctly recall deciding in the last draft that a bunch of scene breaks were unnecessary and removing them. Naturally, I’m now deciding a bunch of scene breaks are necessary and adding them. I’m not so desperate for busywork that I’m going to consult the original draft to determine whether they’re the same scene breaks, but let’s assume for the sake of comedy. Since there’s apparently not an obvious correct choice, it’ll come down to vibes when I’m formatting the to-be-released version.
For all my boasts of giving the finger to dates and travel times, it jumped out at me that a journey that previously took some unspecified number of days this time appeared to take place between dawn and dusk of one. I added a “the next morning” to imply the passage of more time. The next read-through will tell whether one shot of handwavium was enough or I need to add another “and then some more time passed” to satisfy my inner clock watcher.
I changed “plenty of time” to “ample time” because the training is to not use two words when one will do unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. Cue flashback (à la Wayne’s World) to the time making exactly that change caused someone to jeer at me for using “five-dollar words.” In an uncommon act of tact, I didn’t ask this person whether they understood the meaning of the word, but I did ask a dozen other people from various walks of life whether “ample” was particularly obscure vocabulary. Everybody knew what it meant. (One fellow notably replied, “You’re goddamn right I know what an ample bosom is.”) After spending far too much time thinking about this, I concluded “plenty of” is something I’d toss out casually, in conversation with buddies or a rough draft no one else will ever see, while “ample” is an “I’ve given this a few seconds of thought” word. I wouldn’t touch it while copyediting someone else’s work (unless specifically tasked with that level of interference) because it’s a valid stylistic choice, but I’m going to tighten that screw a little in my own writing to be 2% less casual. Yes, my writing scores a little bit above the 5th grade level recommended for newspapers and my day job writing for actual children, but I’m pretty sure any adult who likes reading enough to seek out books for leisure is perfectly capable of understanding the polysyllabic vocabulary and multi-clause sentences of *checks notes* 7th/8th grade.[efn_note]In USian terms, that is. It’s probably more like a 4th grade equivalent in many other countries, but our institutions here hate reading. People might learn things and get ideas, and then we get “you know, there are more of us down here than up there, and those pillars of privilege aren’t as structurally sound as they appear, I’m just sayin'” threatening those institutions. Even their false, self-flattering version of history is perfectly clear about what happens when the people they want to oppress get hold of literacy. They’ve been trying to claw it back ever since, and they’ve finally organized well enough that they’re making huge, rapid strides in demolishing public education, from which this country will never recover. But hey, authoritarians don’t mind their ignorance being a joke on a global scale as long as those they rule are too ignorant to question them. *breathes fire anyway because some things deserve to burn*[/efn_note]
As previously noted, I changed Hero’s name to do away with one final “n” that’s plaguing the names in this series. Now, of course, I’ve noticed his new name’s final syllable is identical to another character in this book who will be a future hero. Not only that, but when I wrote them side by side on my Fix This Shit list, I noticed the first syllables of the aforementioned names are Yeh (awfully close to “yeah”) and No. My hatred of names is swelling to cosmic proportions. I’m going to have the worst supervillain origin story ever. If I give in to the temptation to change No to Nah and make him Yeh’s evil twin, you’ll know my fall is complete.
I made so many references to torture in this book, it felt like I was setting it up to happen. It doesn’t, so it then feels like a buildup that fizzles. I had my first opportunity to take out one of those references. It was two paragraphs, so it might leave a divot, but I can’t make that call while I’m staring at the spot where I know I made the cut. We’ll have to see whether it trips me on the next full read.
I chucked “ammunition” because although I can find modern uses of the word in reference to archery projectiles, my gut is telling me that’s cause for ridicule.
The advantage of Naked World (a state that naturally occurs when one has descriptive deficiencies) is that it’s not necessary to keep track of articles of clothing and accessories that may be removed for various reasons. In a previous scene, Heroine had removed her jacket in anticipation of needing easiest access to her weapons. In this one, she’s forced to make a hasty exit, now with pressing need of easiest access to her weapons. She wouldn’t put on her jacket. She wouldn’t carry her jacket. She’d leave it behind. It is, however, so newly spring the temperature still thinks it’s winter, and she’s going to be mighty cold as soon as she stops running. She’ll be a popsicle before there’s an opportunity to steal replacement outerwear. BUT if the ally she briefly visits next gives her the clothes off his back, her popsicle problem is solved AND it provides a prop to later taunt someone who vehemently denies being territorial about that ally while her twin and Heroine share a meaningful look.
That, to me, is the key to mentioning clothing: It’s never merely decorative, it’s ideally not merely practical, but it can be used in some sort of character-illuminating way. That advice is given often enough (“Use clothing to reveal character!”) but never expanded upon, so writers are left puzzling over what clothing signifies at the time of description. Yellow to signify a sunny disposition, threadbare to show poverty, etc. That’s fine, if a little on the nose, but there are greater possibilities beyond the moment of introduction if you think long-term. How might this character acquire (or have acquired) this item? How long will they be in possession of this item? Who might react to their possession of this item? What might that reaction reveal about all the characters involved? How might that reaction and/or new information affect the plot, minorly or majorly? Sometimes a blue shirt is just a blue shirt to keep your editor from complaining about Naked World! But when you can dredge up something less superficial, not doing so is a wasted opportunity.
I got hung up trying to be thoroughly reassuring about the fate of a horse. Since I offer a Plan B a bit later to a second party, laying it out during Plan A is redundant. Aside from pointless redundancy being boring writing, Heroine really doesn’t have time to repeat herself in the present circumstances, so we’ll just have to live for a couple of scenes without full certainty the old nag will live happily ever after.[efn_note]The horse is fine. In fact, assume she’s immortal. A god, even. The author will neither confirm nor deny this theory, so no one can ever say you’re wrong.[/efn_note]
Heroine is on her third Act I expression of “I never had to deal with shit like this in solitude.” I think I dropped that as a motif right about… here, but there’s an obvious evolutionary arc applicable to romance there, so we’ll see how many times I can draw up that thread leading to the ultimate “yeah, solitude clearly rules, except for the absence of this dude I’d kinda like to keep around, so fine, I’ll tolerate people for his sake, bleh.”
I’ve also outlined the “bonus story” from Hero’s solo adventure in Big City near the middle of the book. In the book, Heroine assigned him a task while she went off to do another, so this story will follow him on that task, a subsequent incident involving a great deal of smoke and audibly agitated chickens (which Heroine observes from a distance in the book), and a further incident that adds private security bruisers to the list of obstacles between the reunited pair and getting out of Big City (referenced in the book in a “for fuck’s sake, I can’t let you out of my sight for five minutes” way). This was all very amusing when casually alluding to it in the book, but since much is left to the reader’s imagination, I feel like the “official version” has to be much wilder than anyone else could ever guess to make it worthwhile. I’m therefore picking through the landfill of my imagination in search of options that are logically consistent but with the potential to become really weird. There’s plenty of time to let that ferment/grow interesting fungus/other disgusting trash metaphor.